Watch How 'Jurassic Park' Created the Life Size Raptor Suits and Meet the Man Inside

Did you know that some of the velociraptors in 'Jurassic Park' were actually stuntmen in puppet suits? (It's OK, we've seen the film hundreds of times and even we didn't know that.) It's true and in this recently released video, we get to see how the late FX wizard Stan Winston created these suits to make a man look like a raptor.

When you see shots like these (that result in movies like 'Jurassic Park'), you wonder why we rely so heavily on CGI in today's movies. This is not to say there wasn't CGI in 'Jurassic Park' because there was; but it was the use of both and only CGI when absolutely necessary that made the movie work and helped the dinosaur threat seem very, very real.

Here, we'll take a look back at what Stan Winston Studios created for Steven Spielberg's classic.

Stan Winston Studios

To determine the suit’s configuration, the Winston team overlaid Raptor drawings on images of [John] Rosengrant in various positions. The crew then did a body cast on him, and sculpted the Raptor form around that cast.

For weeks prior to shooting his scenes, Rosengrant rehearsed in the suit, imitating the Raptor behaviors illustrated in Phil Tippett’s animatics. To simulate Raptor anatomy, Rosengrant assumed a skiing pose inside the suit — bending at the waist and squatting with his legs at ninety-degree angles — having worked with a physical trainer prior to the shoot to ensure that he could hold the position for long periods of time. During filming, he could be in the suit for as long as four hours at a stretch, hung from a framework in between takes to relieve the considerable strain on his back.

You can see a bunch more images of the creation of the 'Jurassic Park' velociraptors at Stan Winston Studios site and watch the video below, which shows you what it looks like with a man inside a foam rubber dinosaur suit.